heres why i eventually want to own TWTR....discussion from my morning newsletter, Strategic Advantage....

I have a suspicion that Twitter is going to end up being one of the more durable media creations of the past decade, as its content is much more diverse than its competitors; its short-form format is more attuned to our national attention-deficit disorder; and it allows advertisers to reach the right customers at the right time in an incredibly useful way.

My eyes were really opened up on the latter when I read this blog post at Twitter on how the National Geographic Channel used Twitter targeting to create a sensational campaign around their show "Killing Kennedy" last month, which was timed to the 50th anniversary of JFK's murder.

The show's narrative was quite compelling to begin with, tracing the parallel trajectories of the lives of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, culminating in the day of the assassination. The Twitter campaign did not just build on-line buzz with a masterful set of tweets aimed at directing viewers to tune in, but it also extended the reach of its TV ads and connected with Twitter users as they watched the show to use their mobile devices as a third screen to enhance the experience.

The show also provided "behind the scenes" looks at the TV production through videos and pictures provided in tweets by actors in the production, which further bound the user to the show and the experience. Because tweets happen in real time, and can be monitored using tools that Twitter provides to advertisers, National Geographic's agency could monitor the tweets to see which were working best and tweak the campaign and enhance its effectiveness.

Twitter reported that on the day of its premiere, 3.354 million viewers watched Killing Kennedy , capturing a 1.1 rating among adults between the ages of 25-54 and making it the network's most-watched program ever. During the telecast, the hashtag #KillingKennedy was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter in the United States, and the network's website experienced record traffic.

With all the targeting and understanding what the audience wanted, NatGeo got viewers to engage with 10% to 20% of the tweets, which is a huge number, and yet the whole campaign cost about 80% less than a conventional campaign focused on magazine, newspaper and TV advertising.

Here's what NatGeo's head of digital marketing said afterwards: "With TV ad targeting, we can now connect with people who are watching certain programs and seeing our ads. We are now able to reach the exact viewers we want in the exact moment that our programs are top of mind. This drives phenomenal engagement and efficiency."

This is a fantastic development, and something you are not going to see at the New York Times or CNN or Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat. This is a real company interacting with its customers in a provocative and useful way, and the customers responding organically in a way that shows they considered the Twitter effort to be useful and fun rather than annoying.